[AutoObsession87]

Hello all,
First of all, I have found this site very useful thus far and am proud to be a new member of the forum.

Now on to my question. I have a text file which includes the following samples:
1/25/2005
a
9/17/2003
b
3/26/2004
c
3/18/2004
d
3/16/2004
e

Each letter corresponds to the date above it.

Right now I am accessing all the data in a PHP script using a while loop and fgets(). Is there an easy way to put this data in date order before I output it to the screen?

Thanks in advance!!

-Scott Petricig

[blaw]

Hi there,

Here's what I'd do:

PHP Code:

<?php



// Get each line of the file date.txt into an array $a_lines.

$a_lines = file('./date.txt');



// Now we want to have an array of [alphabet] => [date] - use a for loop to do this.

// Notice that we have to use step 2 (i.e. $i += 2).

for ($i = 0; $i < count($a_lines); $i += 2) {

    // As for key, you need the second line (alphabet) and the first for the date.

    $a_lines_assoc[$a_lines[($i + 1)]] = $a_lines[$i];

}



// Now we have to sort the array, based on the date.

// Simple sort() wouldn't work, so use natsort().

// Finally, $a_lines_assoc has what you wanted.

natsort($a_lines_assoc);



?>

date.txt contains the following:

Code:

1/25/2005
a
12/17/2003
b
3/26/2004
c
3/18/2004
d
3/16/2004
e

BEFORE natsort(), $a_lines_assoc looks like this:

PHP Code:

Array

(

    [a] => 1/25/2005

    [b] => 12/17/2003

    [c] => 3/26/2004

    [d] => 3/18/2004

    [e] => 3/16/2004

) 

And AFTER:

PHP Code:

Array

(

    [a] => 1/25/2005

    [e] => 3/16/2004

    [d] => 3/18/2004

    [c] => 3/26/2004

    [b] => 12/17/2003

) 

As you see, it's sorted...... WAIT. I just found a flaw. Because you have the year in the end, you can't simply natsort() it and get what you want... Try this instead:

PHP Code:

<?php



// Get each line of the file date.txt into an array $a_lines.

$a_lines = file('./date.txt');



// Now we want to have an array of [alphabet] => [date] - use a for loop to do this.

// Notice that we have to use step 2 (i.e. $i += 2).

for ($i = 0; $i < count($a_lines); $i += 2) {

    // As for key, you need the second line (alphabet) and the first for the date.

    // Use strtotime() to convert the string date into UNIX timestamp.

    $a_lines_assoc[trim($a_lines[($i + 1)])] = strtotime(trim($a_lines[$i]));

}



// Now because we have UNIX timestamp, we can use asort().

// Also, don't use simple sort() or your keys (alphabets) will be replaced with numbers.

asort($a_lines_assoc);



?>

And when echoing the contents, use date('n/j/Y', $your_date_value) like this:

PHP Code:

foreach ($a_lines_assoc as $key => $val) {

    echo 'Key (alphabet): '.$key.' and Date (m/d/yyyy): '.date('n/j/Y', $val).'<br />';

} 

Then you'll get this:

PHP Code:

Key (alphabet): b and Date (m/d/yyyy): 12/17/2003

Key (alphabet): e and Date (m/d/yyyy): 3/16/2004

Key (alphabet): d and Date (m/d/yyyy): 3/18/2004

Key (alphabet): c and Date (m/d/yyyy): 3/26/2004

Key (alphabet): a and Date (m/d/yyyy): 1/25/2005 

More or less, here's what you wanted. Sorry about the first half of the post being useless but after typing them up I just couldn't delete it. =)

Good luck.

[AutoObsession87]

Thanks very much for the help!! It worked beautifully!!